MSI Issues Statement On Burnt Ryzen 7 9800X3D Chips In X870 Motherboards

UPDATE: MSI, the maker of the motherboard at the center of both incidents, has issued a statement on the failures—or one of them, anyway. The statement is as follows:

Recently, we received a user report indicating damage to an AMD Ryzen™ 7 9800X3D processor on an MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WIFI motherboard. At MSI, we are fully committed to the quality of our products and have begun investigating this incident.

Additionally, we are working closely with AMD and are in contact with GamersNexus, which is independently investigating this incident.

We're still pretty sure it was either a spate of faulty LGA sockets or possibly just a story of two users who didn't install their CPUs correctly (and the fact that they had the same motherboard is a bizarre coincidence.) We'll keep you updated on MSI's (and GN's) findings, though.

Original story follows:

Remember when AMD released the Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs and it turned out that some motherboards had broken over-current protection that resulted in a small spate of CPUs literally exploding? Well don't worry, because this isn't that same situation at all. Instead, it seems like there may be an issue with a specific production run of a particular Socket AM5 LGA guide.

Over on Reddit, the comically named /u/TrumpPooPoosPants posted up pictures of his brand-new Ryzen 7 9800X3D with clear burn marks on the bottom. Other pictures show his MSI X870 Tomahawk motherboard's socket with clear burn marks on the LGA pins. The user posted many times in the thread, including to reply to Gamers Nexus' Steve Burke, who offered to purchase the parts at full retail price from the user.

However, he's not the only one who has had this problem. At the Korean-language QuasarZone forums, a user by the name of 김티졔 (Kim Tee-Jye, or maybe 'TJ Kim') posted about his own Ryzen 7 9800X3D that suffered the same fate while also installed in, coincidentally or not, an MSI X870 Tomahawk motherboard.

He posted pictures of the socket, just like the Redditor, and notably, both users had visible deformation to the plastic guide around the LGA socket. Many users on Twitter were quick to blame the unfortunate victim for using excessive force when installing the CPU, but the damage in both cases doesn't really look like it's the result of excessive force. Instead, it looks more like manufacturing defects in the plastic of the CPU socket.

Notably, the socket in question appears to be the "41P1" model, as marked on the metal socket actuation mechanism (SAM); it's not clear whether this issue is limited to just a few sockets used by MSI on X870 Tomahawk motherboards, or whether it may be something more endemic to the LGA included with the 41P1 SAM.

Either way, we definitely recommend users carefully inspect the CPU socket with a flashlight (and reading glasses or a magnifying glass, if necessary) before installing the chip. If it doesn't sit down into the LGA socket quite snugly, then there may be a problem with the socket, and you should double-check yourself before you seriously wreck your shiny new X3D CPU.

Edit: By user request, we've prepared a photo guide that shows a correctly-inserted Socket AM5 CPU. Hopefully the photo is clear enough to help! Make sure to click it for the full-resolution version.

Installing a Socket AM5 CPU isn't difficult, but it's important to be careful about aligning it correctly, and also making sure to avoid dropping a corner of it into the socket forcefully. The LGA pins are very delicate, and it's all-too easy to ruin a motherboard by fumbling the CPU. 

Simply grip it by the edges and set it down on top of the plastic socket guide, then gently bump it into place, where it should drop down into the socket. After that, give it a gentle wiggle by the integrated heatspreader (IHS) to make sure it's snugly in the socket. (It will likely have a tiny bit of wiggle room, but shouldn't be much.) Once the CPU is firmly in place, simply lay the SAM lid (with socket cap installed) down onto the CPU and use the lever to clamp it down. The plastic socket cap should pop out on its own.